


time, curious time

by gingermaggie



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, posting old works from tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:35:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29884656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingermaggie/pseuds/gingermaggie
Summary: prompt: Rose accidentally takes the Tardis back in time ten minutes and encounters the past version of herself and the two of them have to get along awkwardly.--reposted from tumblr, originally posted august 2013
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler
Kudos: 1





	time, curious time

**Author's Note:**

> Here I am in 2021, posting DW fic...that I wrote in 2013 :) Realized some of my old, short fics never made the trip over here. This one didn't have a title, so I decided on a very on-the-nose one from "invisible string" by taylor swift.

“I’ll just be a few minutes,” the Doctor says, bounding across the TARDIS to the door. He glances back at Rose and quirks an eyebrow. “Do try to stay out of trouble while I’m gone.”

“I _am_ capable of surviving on my own for five minutes!” she protests indignantly.

“I’ve been all through time with you, Rose Tyler,” he teases. “Of all people I know how little you need to get into a scrape.”

“Oh, get out of here, then,” she says with a poorly-stifled laugh, hands on her hips in a failed attempt to look stern. He smiles that too-big smile as the door snaps shut, and of course it makes her smile, too.

Giving the door another glance to make sure he isn’t coming back to see her, Rose heads toward the monitor on the console. She likes watching him step out of the TARDIS, the way he adjusts his coat and runs a hand more carefully than usual through his hair when he thinks no one can see him. He likes that hair of his a bit too much, she thinks, but then again, so does she.

But she doesn’t quite make it to the console. She really does have a poor habit of leaving her things laying around the console room—jackets, books, the occasional souvenir from whatever exotic planet they visited today—but it’s never really been a problem, and the Doctor never seems to mind. Still, she has no one to blame but herself when she trips over an abandoned coat and goes flying into a control panel, knocking into buttons and levers. The _whoosh_ of the TARDIS’s engines firing up sound like laughter to Rose.

“Oh, no, come on!” she scrambles to steady herself, frantically pushing buttons in an attempt to stop the TARDIS’s takeoff. “I _told_ him he needed to teach me to work this thing!”

The TARDIS stops. Breathing a sigh of relief, Rose steps away from the console. She eyes the door nervously before she works up the nerve to go to it. She could be anywhere, not to mention any _when_. Before she can chicken out, she pushes open the door and steps outside, astonished and pleased to find herself on the same road as before. Maybe she stopped in time after all!

Of course, such a hope is too good to be true. As Rose’s eyes fall on a blue police box just down the street from her, she hears the Doctor’s words: _Do try to stay out of trouble._

“I did _try._ ” she mumbles.

“I _thought_ I heard another TARDIS! Doctor! Doctor, c’mere!” Rose’s eyes widen as the door to the second TARDIS opens and she herself steps out. Rose.2 is wearing the same shirt and jeans as Rose the first—and, when she catches sight of her, the same astonished expression.

Slowly, and almost without thinking about it, the two Roses begin walking toward each other, meeting between their respective TARDISes and stopping short a few feet away. “Don’t need another paradox,” they both say at the same time.

“Which one of us is first, then?” Rose asks, and Rose.2 shrugs.

“Don’t ask me,” she says.

“Well, where I’m at, the Doctor just left for a minute—said to stay out of trouble.” Rose tells her, glancing toward the TARDIS her other self had exited. “That happened to you yet?”

Rose.2 shakes her head. “Good job following instructions, though.” she adds with a laugh.

“I could say the same to you!” Rose exclaims. “Or, I can.” she edits, biting her lip. “Later. When this happens to you. Oh, sometimes I really hate time travel.”

“Rose?” the Doctor steps out of the TARDIS behind Rose.2. When he sees both of them standing there, he stops short. “And… Rose. Oh, what’ve you done _now_?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” both Roses exclaim. The first Rose adds, “It was an accident.”

“’Course it was.” the Doctor says, but he’s smiling. “Alright, then, where am I? And that’s a very familiar shirt, how far off are you?”

Rose pulls off her necklace, a small silver pocketwatch dangling from a chain. It was an impulse buy at a strange bazaar on a planet whose name she couldn’t pronounce, but she’s glad for it now. “It’s noon exactly,” she says.

Rose.2 follows her lead and checks the time. “Ten ’til. Not far off at all.”

The Doctor starts toward his future TARDIS, gesturing for Rose to follow him. Rose.2 trails behind, but when she almost bumps into her future self the Doctor holds out a hand for her to wait. “Ahh, ahh—not so close! Wait here, we’ll just be a moment. I assume you’re alone, Miss Future Rose, or I’d’ve gotten us out already, yeah?”

“Yeah, because you’re Mister Perfect-Fix-It-All.” Rose says, a little peevishly, but she follows him inside anyway.

But the Doctor just grins. “I really am, aren’t I?” He sweeps straight over to the console and fiddles around with the controls. “Come on then, c’mere.” He takes her hand and helps her hold down a lever. “Let that go once I’m outside and you’ll be right back where you came from.”

“Well I guess I’ll see you then.” She smiles, and he beams back at her.

“That you will.” With a peck on the forehead and a wave, he heads back to her past self—if only ten minutes past—and she releases the lever, relieved when the engines start up immediately. As soon as it stops, she checks the clock on the console to make sure everything’s sorted. Then she flops down onto a chair, more exhausted than she should be after a five minute escapade.

When the Doctor comes back a few minutes later, he’s half-hiding a smirk. “No trouble, then?” he asks innocently.

“None at all.” she says breezily. “But you really do need to teach me to fly the TARDIS. In case of emergency.”

**Author's Note:**

> [romansuzume on tumblr!](http://romansuzume.tumblr.com)


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